H&S scene;High waves, high winds;Man against make;

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H&S Scene
High Waves, Man
= = = = = = = ^ ^ ^ Against
High Winds Make
A month before the tall ships sailed into New York
harbor last July in celebration of the Bicentennial,
Houston AAAS manager Tom Chambers set out on a
five-day sea adventure that would take him
through the unpredictable waters of the Gulf of
Mexico. Treacherous reefs, seventeen-foot waves,
loss of radio communication and a vicious storm
at sea didn't deter Tom and his fellow crew mem­bers
from sailing the 650 miles from Galveston to
Vera Cruz that make up the course of the Regata
Amigos.
The regatta is a biennial event which was first
held in 1968. In 1976, twenty-four ships partici­pated
in the race to one of Mexico's busiest port
cities. Tom was on board LaVida, a thirty-four-foot
single-masted sailboat owned by his friend Gus
Brann. Two of Gus's friends, Bert Foster and Dale
Larsen, and his two teenaged sons, Ricky and
Robby made up the remainder of the crew. Since
Bert was the only one aboard with previous ex­perience
in ocean racing, the rest of the crew
viewed their upcoming sailing venture with a mix­ture
of excitement and trepidation in the weeks
before the regatta.
The crew's fears subsided during the first four
days of the race as clear skies and calm waters
made for smooth sailing. Because of strong, steady
winds, La Vida was able to fly her spinnaker, the
large head sail used in running before the wind,
during most of the voyage. The sloop was under
sail twenty-four hours a day, with the crew mem­bers
taking turns in pairing off for three watch
shifts. They used the Swedish watch system in
which night watches are shorter than those held
during the day
The one disturbing event during those first few
days was the loss of ship-to-shore radio com­munication
which meant that the people aboard
La Vida were completely cut off from the outside
world. A welcome diversion was the arrival of a
school of dolphins that swam alongside the boat,
providing some unexpected companionship for
the sailors.
The relative tranquility of the voyage was broken
on the final day of the race by a severe lightning
storm. La Vida was tossed around in the Gulf by
While Tom Chambers was battling the winds
and waves in the Gulf of Mexico last summer,
Dan Harrison was battling a 120-pound
maneating shark in the Atlantic*
Dan, a member of the Executive Office
EDP Development group, was on his first
shark-fishing expedition and was lucky — or
unlucky — enough to catch two of those
denizens of the deep his first time out* Shark
fishing is not a sport for the fainthearted or
the lethargic — the hours are long and hard*
Dan and his cousin Robert Adamson, the
owner of the thirty-eight-foot cabin cruiser
they used, left Long Island at 5 A*M. and
faced a four-hour run before they could
even wet a hook* It took them that long to
reach a point thirty-five miles offshore
where the waters would be warm and deep
enough for sharks*
The equipment Dan and Robert used was
standard deep-sea-fishing gear — a
fiberglass rod and reel equipped with a sta­tic
sixty-pound-test line* This means that the
maximum weight the line can hold without
breaking is sixty pounds* Having baited their
hooks with squid, Dan and Robert secured
their rods in harnesses around their waists
and began chumming — throwing
chopped-up oily fish into the water — in
order to attract the sharks* Most sharks feed
on fish, shellfish and even on smaller sharks*
They have a keen sense of smell which, in
some cases, enables them to track down
prey as far away as a quarter mile*
"Patience is a necessity in any type of fish­ing,
and shark fishing is no exception," ac­cording
to Dan* He and Robert spent three
hours chumming and watching for fins be­fore
a six-foot Mako went for the bait and
began tugging wildly on Dan's line* In order
to keep the shark from breaking the line, he
put a drag on the reel which enabled the fish
to run with the line until it tired* Then Dan
would reel in furiously before the shark re­gained
its strength and began stripping off
line again* The Mako, a ferocious fighter